Recently, a vehicle accommodates various types of electric devices including a lamp, an audio device, an ABS, a rear camera and the like. The vehicle also includes a wire harness that supplies electric power or control signals to these various types of electric devices.
Such wire harnesses are different in the number of signal lines or the number of power lines in accordance with the type of the vehicle, or in accordance with the grade or specifications of the same type of vehicle. Alternatively, the connection route needs to be varied in accordance with the positional arraignment of the electric devices. For such reasons, different wire harnesses and different connectors that connect the wire harnesses need to be provided for each type, grade or specifications.
It is increasingly demanded that a common wire harness or a common connector that connect the wire harnesses should be usable for any type, grade or specifications of the vehicle in order to reduce the cost. For realizing this, it is conceivable to connect common wire harnesses by connection members in accordance with the type, grade or specifications of the vehicle.
For example, Patent Document 1 proposes the following branch connector. Covered electric cable groups, each including covered electric cables located parallel to each other, are put to intersect and overlap each other. There are intersection portions where the covered electric cables intersect each other in an overlapping state. Among the intersection portions, there may be an intersection portion where covered electric cables that are desired to be conductive to each other intersect each other. At such an intersection portion, the electric cables are connected to be conductive to each other by use of a crimp terminal.
In the case where a branch connector having such a structure proposed in Patent Document 1 is used as a connection member that connect the wire harnesses as described above, the following occurs. Among the intersection portions where the covered electric cables intersect each other in an overlapping state, there may be an intersection portion where covered electric cables that are desired to be conductive to each other intersect each other. Such an intersection portion is selected in accordance with the type, grade or specifications of the vehicle. At such an intersection portion, the electric cables are connected by use of a crimp terminal while, for example, the specification manual is checked. Therefore, there is an undesirable possibility that the connection is made at a wrong intersection portion, or that the connection at the intersection portion by use of the crimp terminal is troublesome. There is another undesirable possibility that the number of components including the crimp terminal is increased, which fails to improve the production efficiency or to reduce the cost sufficiently.